I am leaving
This is starting to feel like
It's right before my eyes
And I can taste it
It's my sweet beginning
His name was Luke. He had deeply parted hair the color of cinnamon and eyes like chocolate. Standing, he fell at about five feet and 9 inches. He hated thunderstorms and his job. His name was Luke, and by Tuesday morning, he'd be gone.
Luke was a common name around the Alford household. It was a name that brought forth a promise of gossip, a name whispered amongst the maids while working on the daily chores and a name spoken with disdain among the royals. Luke, you see, was notorious for many things. His mistakes occurred on a regular basis, ranging from sleeping in until noon to spilling tea on His Royal Highness. On the top of the list, however, Luke was notorious for being a reject.
When people hear the word reject, many things come to mind, but what it comes down to for them is this; Something's wrong with a reject. If nothing was wrong, they'd still be where they belong. If a reject from an orphanage seemed like a perfectly good person – then they were hiding something. No orphanage ever turned away children. People aren't rejected from orphanages for no reason, and Luke was no exception.
Luke aware of this, to the point where his own thoughts tortured him. A reject from an orphanage. A runaway. A misfit. Luke wasn't part of the neatly fitted puzzle pieces of the Alford household, and he wasn't in the puzzle of the orphanage from which he was raised. Luke was a piece from a different puzzle altogether.
Maybe, this was the exact reason he left - knowing that he would never belong in the Alford household caused him to embark on this journey of his. He didn't know much, but what he knew was that this would open doors for him. Luke wasn't even sure where these doors would lead, and he was sensible enough to know that he was putting himself in a lot of danger, but this butler was hopeful enough to try.
"I'm leaving the palace,"
Those were the first words uttered by Luke over the phone. At the moment, Luke was speaking to a very close friend. This friend, in fact, was Jan, a butler serving the royals of Dres Van. The two even grew up in the same orphanage, but never communicated until after they both left. Additionally, Jan was the very person who somehow got Luke the job at Liberty's palace after a fateful encounter on one groggy June morning. If one were to ask Luke to recall the day, he would reply with a glare and a curt reply of, "The past is the past,"
But Luke knew, and so did Jan, that the past haunted him far worse than any ghost or nightmare. When offered the job from Jan, Luke knew it was the beginning of his new life;
As was this.
There was a silence on the other end of the phone, then a laugh. The laugh carried no joy or humor though, and it petrified Luke.
"You can't be serious."
"And why not?"
"Luke. Please tell me that you're kidding and this is all a big setup. You live off of this job. You leave and you'll have nothing, no food, nowhere to live, no source of money. Leave and you're screwed,"
Luke doesn't speak, and Jan continues to compensate for the silence from him.
"And are we not going to discuss that I'm the one who picked your sorry ass up off of the street and got you this job? And you're just going to throw that away like it's nothing?"
Luke can feel himself growing irritated. "There's more for me out there, Jan!" Luke raises his voice, but regrets it immediately when he realizes he's still in the palace. "I don't belong here, just like I didn't belong in the orphanage. I don't know who I am yet and I want to find out."
"Are you really that shallow? Do you really think that there's anything else for you out there? Is living in a comfortable household not good enough for you? It's a far cry from where you were, Luke."
His voice is harsh, but harsher still are the words he says. They pierce through Luke's heart.
"Whatever. This isn't a conversation that should be discussed over the phone. Are you free tonight?"
"As free as I could be,"
"Just meet me at the coffee place."
And so he did.